If you aren't familiar with CCU you can check out their free checking rewards here.
I opened a CCU checking and credit account about 8 months ago. I mentioned it somewhere on Reddit prior to that and a lot of people assumed it was a "scam", saying either they would drop the interest rate or change the requirements after a few months. I wanted to provide an update and mention how some of the requirements are more difficult to meet than they might seem, but so far, no scams or requirement changes have taken place.
First of all, you must make 12 credit transactions with the check card per month to qualify. These transactions need to be made AND cleared between the 1st and 28th of each month. I've found that most transactions take between 8 and 10 days to clear. So basically you need to make those 12 transactions in the first ~20 days of the month. Any transactions that don't clear by the 28th will not be carried over to the next month. So the best thing to do is to get those 12 transactions done as soon as possible in the first few weeks, then switch to using the credit card to help bring that credit up to the $500-$1000 minimum for the max APY.
Which brings up my next point, the minimum credit card balance. If you have a $1200 credit card balance and decide to pay off $800 on the 27th, then you will not qualify for the 3.59% or 4.59% rates. I think this is pretty shady and I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the fine print, but unless I'm not doing something correctly, this is how it works. So wait until the 1st of the month to pay the credit card off to maintain the maximum amount owed on the 28th. Also this only counts credit card transaction made and cleared between the 1st and 28th so carrying a balance month to month isn't going to help at all.
Next is the direct deposit/ACH requirement. I've had ACH transactions held for 2 weeks+. I'm not sure which side of the transaction issues the hold, but I've found it best to just make the payment on the 1st along with the credit card payment. I try to keep all my bills lined up to be able to be paid on the 1st so I can do everything at once anyway.
So far I have been paid $287 in dividends and charged $0 in fees.
Submitted May 01, 2017 at 12:33PM by JayDee240 http://ift.tt/2pPoVvE
